


mejor

by starrywrite



Category: On My Block (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Broken Families, Brother Feels, Child Abandonment, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Pre-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 02:55:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21111521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrywrite/pseuds/starrywrite
Summary: “I like you better as a mano than a mami or a papi.”





	mejor

**Author's Note:**

> i just have a lot of feelings about these two :((( also i just realized the similarities between nani & lilo and young oscar & bb cesar so if u need me i’ll be crying in the club
> 
> trigger warning for implications of child abuse and drug addiction, mentions of child abandonment and broken families.

Losing their father wasn’t truly a loss; he was a puto pendejo, and that was putting it kindly, and Oscar and Cesar’s only memories of him were cigarette burns and bruises. When he finally up and left for good, it was a blessing. 

Losing their ma, on the other hand, was harder. More complicated. 

Oscar knew she was long gone before she left; the glazed look in her eyes, the sluggish way she moved, sleeping more often than not, he knew it was only a matter of time. Cesar, on the other hand, took it a little harder than he did. He was always a mama’s boy, crying whenever she had to go away on one of her “trips” and wanting to be by her side at all times. Oscar was just grateful he was too young to really understand where she was going and why she was gone. Lately, ma had been struggling --- _“esta vez será diferente, mijo”_ she had said to Oscar as he drove her home just a month ago -- and he shouldn’t have been surprised that it turned out this way. 

It got loud that night, the pair of them screaming at each other like they weren’t mother and son. Spanish and English bounced off of the walls and in the midst of it all, Oscar had to thank god that Cesar was staying at one of his lil homie’s houses and not here to deal with all of this. It wasn’t until she backhanded him after mouthing off one too many times that he glared at her and spat, “Arregla tu mierda.” To his surprise, she listened. At least this time he didn’t have to be the one to relocate her; she had left a note for him to find when he woke up the next day. He crumpled it up and threw it in the trash before Cesar had gotten home. 

“Where’s mami?” he asked after Oscar had gotten him settled in. He tried distracting him for as long as he could with questions about his sleepover but he knew it would only be a matter of time. 

“She wasn’t feeling well, mano,” Oscar said. “She had to go get better.” He bit his tongue to keep himself from saying “again.”

Cesar had fallen silent, accepting the answer, or maybe this time he just wasn’t surprised to hear that she was gone again. 

-

The thing was whenever ma went away, no matter how long for, she always came back. A few days here and there to get clean again or get discharged from the hospital and before he knew it, Oscar was driving her home again. Her dresser drawer was full of pictures Cesar had drawn for her in these absences, get well cards and otherwise cute family photos of the three of them. 

It was different this time. He wasn’t sure why, initially it had no reason to be different than every other time ma had gone away. Maybe because Cesar was getting older, starting to realize how often this was happening. But a time ticked on, as the days turned to weeks then months, Oscar noticed how many tears he stopped shedding over wanting his mami. It’s going on a year now and Cesar’s stopped asking him every night when mami’s coming home. He doesn’t realize he should be grateful because the alternative -- him knowing the truth -- is much worse 

But Cesar’s seven-going-on-eight now, and he’s a lot smarter than anyone gives him credit for, Oscar included. So he really shouldn’t have felt like the rug had been ripped out from under him when Cesar asks, “She’s not coming back, is she?” his voice was so soft Oscar almost hadn’t heard him at all. 

There was a heaviness in his chest that rendered him speechless. He figures Cesar knows the answer anyway. The last thing he needs is Oscar lying to him again. 

-

He really was a cabrón for thinking his kid brother would really handle their ma leaving well. His relationship with her was so different than his, her leaving like this had to have hurt him, a wound that wouldn’t heal after a few days of realizing she really was gone this time. Funny how the one thing Oscar had always hoped for ended up being Cesar’s greatest downfall. 

Cesar’s never been an angry kid, never lost his temper or been aggressive with anyone. So Oscar is a little more than dumbfounded when he checks their voicemail to learn that the mocoso has been suspended from school for punching one of his classmates. 

He spends the entire car ride to Cesar’s elementary school wondering if this is his fault, if he should be smarter about doing Santos business so close to home, if he needs to be a better role model for his brother. He goes back and forth between blaming himself and being angry because Cesar definitely knows better, knows never to hit anyone for no reason. He gives himself the bit of hope that maybe this was all a misunderstanding, that Cesar was actually the one who had gotten hit and was being nailed as the perpetrator. All of that hope had disappeared as soon as he went into the principal’s office to see Cesar scowling in a chair, his little hands still balled into fists and shaking. Across from him sat another kid with an icepack pressed to his jaw, sniffling. Shit. 

He signs Cesar out of school and grips his forearm, dragging him to the car and all but throwing him in the passenger’s seat, knowing he absolutely shouldn’t be sitting there because he’s too damn small but that’s the least of his concerns today. The car ride home is silent and when they pull up to the crib, Cesar slams the impala’s door shut as he walks into the house. He doesn’t even bring his backpack inside. 

Oscar sighs heavily, following in after him. He’s still treading the line between big brother and pseudo parental figure, and if he’s being honest, he has no idea what he’s doing. “You got anything to say for yourself?” he asks, finally breaking the silence. Cesar just sulks, arms crossed over his chest, slouched in his seat at their kitchen table. “C? I know you hear me, mano.”

Cesar grunts in reply, bringing his arms up to the table and burying his face in them. 

Oscar sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, feeling his annoyance grow with every passing second of Cesar’s silence. “C, I know you hear me. And I know you know better than to go around hitting kids for no reason.”

“Thought I was Lil Spooky,” he mumbles under his breath but Oscar hears him clear as day.

“Well you ain’t.” Oscar replies right away, hating the guys for blessing the nickname onto his brother like it was nothing. “And you ain’t some thug --”

“Not like you, right?” Cesar lifts his head up from his arms, his voice thick like he’s trying not to cry but nothing but anger on his face.

Oscar feels like he’s been slapped. He’s never heard Cesar mouth off to him like this, to anyone for that matter. He’d be more stunned if he wasn’t so pissed off. “Excuse me?” he snaps his fingers. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, Cesarito.” He hopes the use of his full name will catch his attention, let him know that he isn’t playing around anymore. “This little attitude ain’t cute, you hear me? And it’s not gonna fly around here.”

“Whatever,” Cesar grumbles with an eye roll, clearly uninterested in the impending lecture. 

Oscar frowns. “The fuck you say?” he asks, feeling himself teetering and tottering over the line he’s unable to balance on. He doesn’t know which side he’s going to fall over to. “You think just ‘cause you roughed some kid up you’re grown now? That you can talk to me however you want? Well that’s not how it’s going to work around here, chiquillo.” Cesar scowls, looking down at his folded arms, his lower lip trembling and Oscar pretends not to notice. “You don’t talk back to me like that and you don’t go around roughin’ up your classmates like you did today. I don’t know why you think you can get away with acting like this, but you can’t. You’re grounded.” He feels silly even as he says it but at least now he knows what side of the line he’s on.

Cesar glares at him. “You can’t ground me. Only mami can ground me.”

Before he can stop himself, he snaps, “Well ma isn’t here, is she?” and he hates himself as soon as he says it. “S’long as I’m here and she ain’t, I’m the one in charge. This ain’t some free for all just because ma isn’t around.”

“I wish she was!” Cesar all but shouts at him and Oscar can’t stop himself from shouting back, “Well she’s not!” And Cesar jumps up from his chair, running off to his bedroom to slam his door shut as loud as he can, and Oscar curses, punching the top of their shitty dinner table before going out back, slamming the door equally as loud.

\- 

Hours later he lets himself into Cesar’s bedroom with a plate of pizza, dinner and a peace offering. “C?” he says quietly even though he knows Cesar’s awake, despite him lying with his back to him. “Brought you some dinner in case you were hungry.” He puts the plate on his bedside table and sits on his mattress. “Still not talking to me, huh?” he asks, gently resting his hand on his brother’s back. Cesar shrugs as best he can while lying down and Oscar sighs. “I’m sorry, okay?” he says. Apologizing has never been easy for him but he knows Cesar’s sensitive and he knows that it’s more important for the two of them to talk this stuff out. It all feels very sitcom television to him but he figures it’s important to try. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

Cesar finally rolls over to face him. His eyes are red and his eyelashes are wet. It breaks Oscar’s heart. “I deserved it,” he says. “I was being a brat.”

Oscar gently nudges him until he’s sitting up and he moves closer to him. “You wanna tell me what that was about? Or maybe why you hit that kid today?”

“He asked why I don’t have a mom,” Cesar murmurs quietly, leaning against Oscar whose arm is around his tiny shoulders. Oscar unconsciously tightens his grip on Cesar. “He wasn’t being mean about it, I guess. But everyone knows she’s gone. They treat me different.”

“They just don’t know what to say,” Oscar says softly, knowing that his reasoning is going above his seven year old brother’s head. “It’s the same for Monse, ain’t it? She doesn’t got a mom either. I’m sure kids say stuff like that to her too. Does she go around hitting people?”

“Yes,” as soon as Cesar says it, Oscar remembers who exactly he was talking about. That little girl was a real fierabrás. Thank god she isn’t affiliated the way they are; the last thing Freerdige needs is her packing.

“Okay, bad example,” he chuckles despite himself. “But the point is, people are gonna say stuff, stupid stuff. Maybe about you or about one of your little homies. But you can’t lose your temper like that. It’s real easy to go around hitting people, but it makes you a stronger person if you don’t.” When Cesar doesn’t say anything, Oscar sighs. “I’m sorry, C. Pero, I’m trying, sabes? I’m not a very good mami,” he murmurs as he muses his hair. “Or a papi, I guess.”

“That’s okay,” Cesar says, tilting his head back so he can look at Oscar as he says with a dimpled grin, “I like you better as a mano than a mami or a papi.” 

Oscar chuckles softly and kisses the top of Cesar’s head. Whispers, “I love you, mano,” into his hair and sighs contently when Cesar snuggles against him. He wraps his arms around his chiquillo and hugs him tight. No matter how crazy or angry Cesar can make him, he’s still his baby, his heart and soul. And maybe one day he’ll get the hell out of Freeridge and run as far away from this city as he can, or maybe he’ll follow in the footsteps laid out before him, stepping into shoes much too big for him to fill. Whatever the future holds, he has no idea. But right here and now, they have each other. And Cesar is _his_. No one can take that away from him.


End file.
